Migraine Prophylaxis with Precision Spectral Filters

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Migraine is a common neurovascular disorder, affecting approximately 28 million Americans with a high preponderance in women. Migraine headache pain can last hours to days, and causes covert disability and days lose from work. In addition to debilitating pain, migraine is frequently accompanied by various visual disturbances. Our recent study supports the hypothesis that high susceptibility to perceptual illusions in migraineurs with visual aura is associated with hyper activation in visual cortex in response to "strong" stimuli. This hypervisual cortical activity is called visual cortical stress in this application. The visual cortex stress, although produced by an experimental stimulus in our study, can also result from such activities as reading, working on a computer, watching television, and seeing certain patterns in the day to day. Our general hypothesis is that visual cortical stress results from too great neural (hyperneural) activity in response to "strong" physiological sensory stimulation, particularly but not exclusively visual. A strong physiological visual input may cause a spread of excitation through hyperexcitable cortex, leading to neurons firing inappropriately and thereby resulting in perceptual illusions and distortions and possibly promoting a migraine attack. We hypothesize that the cortical hyperexcitability is non-uniform, and that the precision spectral filters redistribute the cortical excitation that occurs in response to a strong visual stimulus. Comfortable colors redistribute the excitation in such a way as to reduce the excitation in hyperexcitable regions. In this application, we will investigate 1) reduction in abnormal neural activity and 2) reduction in migraine headaches by precision spectral filters in the same migraine individuals. The studies will collect pilot data for investigation of whether cortical activation could predict the benefit of precision spectral filters in reducing the frequency of migraine attacks, and will make it possible to develop a procedure for identifying those most likely to benefit from precision spectral filters. Migraine is a common neurovascular disorder, affecting approximately 28 million Americans with a high preponderance in women. Numerous studies have suggested that migraineurs with visual aura (MwA) are associated with hyper activation in visual cortex and excess visual cortical stress could result in migraine attacks. Our recent study showed a 50% rate of effectiveness of precision spectral filters (PSF) on reduction of migraine attack in MwA, and the proposed studies will investigate whether cortical activation could predict the benefit of PSF in reducing the frequency of migraine attack and therefore make it possible to develop a procedure for identifying those most likely to benefit from PSF.